Roku CEO Calls Apple TV a 'Money Loser', Says Product is 'Essentially' an Accessory for iPad

[irDigital0l]

im thinking its perhaps the exact opposite. ive yet to see the interview that these quotes come from but was watching older ones on youtube and hes always asked when roku will be crushed by the big boys. yet roku seems to be doing very well.

would think its in many ways built up frustration.

Yes, I agree Roku is doing very well for now and is also pretty good, not going to lie.

But Amazon and Apple haven't really been taking TV that seriously until this year. I'm not saying Roku is suddenly going to be crushed and go out of business, but Amazon and Apple will give it a hard time.

 

[Brandon263]

They may not have directly said the words "nexus 7"



but they clearly were showing a nexus 7 on the screen and heavily implied that they were comparing to a N7.



you can move the goal posts all you'd like. Apple historically still is as guilty of calling out the competitors, as the competitors calling Apple out.



Neither IMHO are justified in it. I've said it in the past, but it was one of my biggest pet peeves with Steve Jobs. He Regularly bad mouthed competitors on stage.

Actually, I'm not at all concerned about issues of perceived morality or immorality.

I'm interested in what's more effective from a marketing strategy perspective. It seems to me that addressing your competitors generically is more effective than naming then outright and thereby adding to their market exposure.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Gee, so Roku, a competitor that makes the Roku Box that directly competes with Apple TV is complaining that Apple should stop making it so they can PWN the market place or what? Yeah, Toyota should stop making cars while they're at it since not every model makes money and we here at Chevrolet would like to have a larger market share.

Funnier yet is the comment that it's an accessory for the iPad. AppleTV came out a LONG time before the iPad ever did. Airplay with video came MUCH later (Gen2) and while that's handy, I hardly ever use it in practice. I can also use my Mac Mini along with a Bluetooth Playstation 3 controller to play Mac games on the other side of the house using the Mac's video output to Airplay to an AppleTV. I thought that was pretty nifty, but I mostly use it to watch tv shows, movies and pictures along with listening to my music collection all around the house with a central Mac Mini server for over 500 movies, dozens of tv shows, thousands of photos and almost 9000 songs. I don't even own an iPad....

 

[sracer]

Now hold on... We would need to define better here. I now have two ATVs, but I looked at roku and almost bought it. However, in my analysis, I determined that the integration into the Apple ecosystem beat out some of the feature advantages of roku. Therefore, if you are an apple user like me (iMac, MacBook Air, ipad, 2 iPhones, time capsule), then I believe the ATV is better. If you are not bought into the apple ecosystem, then roku is better than any thing out there including google's chromecast.

I find that too many people discount the power of the ecosystem and the apple integration. I do not. I find that very important to me and I find no other company doing as good a job as Apple in this respect.

In my all-Apple home, the Roku 3 with Plex has been a dramatically better solution than our ATV2's. When Apple said that ATV was a hobby they weren't trying to be humble. They were setting the expectation of quality and support. I know that many use ATV's and they work flawlessly for them but in our home, we didn't have reliably good experiences.

With the Roku 3, we have quality "official" channels, as well as dozens more of unofficial channels that are pretty decent, and 100's more that are off the wall. My personal media collection on my iMac is well organized and well served by the Plex server.

Obviously YMMV.

 

[Ezhik]

It's true when you live in a country that does not have Netflix or Hulu or anything like that.

 

[tmanto02]

I'm sorry I just don't believe this. Apple is not in the business of losing money. Loss leading strategy or not.

I'm sure the Apple TV is still profitable for Apple, let alone the content.

 

[usarioclave]

Yup, if you properly rip your videos and make sure the end product is Apple-native (mp4 / mov / m4v with H.264 video and AAC / AC3 audio), it'll be playable by the ATV as well. That is, in order to use the ATV for video playback, you in no way are locked to videos purchased from the iTunes store.

I just click "Apple TV 3" on handbrake. Is that hard? Or I stream files (mkv, etc) using AirVideo over Airplay. Lock in?

 

[subsonix]

(It still is)

No, it is not.

 

[patent10021]

While I love the ATV I eagerly await the day when I can play mkv natively.

This will never happen though.

 

[photoj2754]

Here' some help for everyone here who's never heard of Roku:
http://www.cnet.com/videos/roku-3-vs-apple-tv-3rd-gen-rematch/
I only have Apple devices so the ATV3 I have works for those, but the Roku 3 is far and away the better device on so many different levels as you'll see by watching the video. Still, Not a smart move by the Roku CEO saying what he did.

 

[Menneisyys2]

The comparison was to an unnamed Android tablet. Nowhere did Schiller state anything to the effect that "this is a Nexus 7" and here are its shortcomings in relation to the iPad. There's clearly a difference between saying, in a generic way, "our competitors' products lack XYZ," to saying "Apple TV is a money loser and basically can only be used as an accessory for the iPad."

Everybody at least remotely interested in mobility and tech knew it was a Nexus 7 2013.

And, regarding Schiller's speech, he did "forget" to list a lot of cons of the rMini. So much for being objective...

 

[Goodhur]

Sounds very defensive. He has a great product but the Apple TV is so much more than his description. I think everybody's thought should be the upcoming content wars. Soon you have to own multiple brands of streamers to watch exclusive content.

 

[Menneisyys2]

While I love the ATV I eagerly await the day when I can play mkv natively.

This will never happen though.

In the meantime, consider using Subler or MP4Tools for quick remuxes (if your MKV's are compatible and you won't lose anything important during the process, that is - most importantly and commonly, subtitles). I've published dozens of dedicated tutorials & articles on using them in the local Apple TV forum here at MR.

 

[4JNA]

...Roku CEO and founder Anthony Wood...

Rok-who?

let me google that on my ipad. then i'll view those results on my tv, thanks Apple!

 

[ezdz]

As usual this all depends if you're in the U.S, here in Canada the Roku is pretty much useless except for Netflix. No Hulu, no Amazon, etc.

 

[akatsuki]

I have a Roku and think it is a much better box than the AppleTV. But this is just a temporary state of affairs as TV could be much better than it is now. I am not sure whether Apple and Steve Jobs have cracked it, but someone will eventually.

 

[ersatzplanet]

All it would take for Apple to bury the competition is to add a controller to the ATV, a custom magic trackpad or allow your iPhone to do it, and open the ATV to running your iPhone/iPad games natively on it. Whatever you have on your other iDevices is now on you ATV. No airplay needed. Upscaled if needed. All part of the combined App Store.

 

[gnasher729]

It's amazing the wave of animosity here anyone gets who criticizes Apple. It seems rather insecure, quite frankly.

What is this about imagining psychological drama in posters here?

So you feel a "wave of animosity". It's "insecure". Others claim the Roku CEO is "defensive". Don't you guys think that's a cheap trick that nobody falls for? Or do people actually fall for it? Personally, I'd rather see some real arguments and not amateur psychology.

 

[gnasher729]

comes to 142 million per year in sales. Now the question is, what is the profit from that? at a rough guess I would say $30 million profit per year, and 210 million in seven years.

The number was one billion dollar Apple TV revenue in 2013. Not total Apple TV sales.

 

[Swift]

He's just foreshadowing what is bound to happen.

When Amazon and Apple release their new TVs this year, Roku is gonna hurt.

Well, he could try another business model: make computers and give them away so he could sell roku boxes for $4000.

----------

The number was one billion dollar Apple TV revenue in 2013. Not total Apple TV sales.

The sales were of programming, not the little hockey pucks.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Had every ROKU over the years, including the NEW ROKU 3,all have been gifted and STILL work perfectly. The 2 ATV's I have also owned, have died.
The quality of the ROKU picture, has always been better than ATV, and with my new Bright House update damn near BluRay, couldn't be happier with ROKU

 

[Bibbler]

Lots of defensive people here. Quite humorous, especially the folks who have "never heard of a ROKU".. LOL

FWIW, I own an Apple TV and a ROKU 2 and while the ROKU is my device of choice between the two, I have moved to a RaspPi running XBMC. A fun little device and an essential part of my cord cutting strategy.

 

[Kenrik]

He says that Apple is losing money however Roku boxes are similar to Apple TV and sell for less (as low as $49). That must mean he is losing even more money then Apple! Good job Roku.

 

[jdanilson]

hello kettle.

pot. calls kettle black. This is news?

 

[cocky jeremy]

I have 3 Apple TV's and 0 Roku boxes. I also have an ever growing library of TV shows and Movies in my iTunes. All that matched with Airplay from my MacBooks and iOS devices makes the Apple TV invaluable.

Even looking rationally at the comment itself, "Apple TV is essentially an accessory for the iPad. They lose money, which is unusual for Apple,"

A) I seriously doubt Apple lose any money on the Apple TV costs.
B) An accessory for iPad? Works with iPhones too and aren't their like 500 million of them out there? along with tens of millions of iPads. Nice market to cater for.

This all sounds like the final ramblings of a company about to go out of business when Amazon launch their set top box.

Even IF Apple lost money on Apple TV sales, they'd make up for it in iTunes rentals/purchases. Even IF that somehow doesn't play out.. it's Apple. Losing a little here and there is nothing to them.